Way to dismiss three old cultures with the comment that it "wouldn't be surprising if no one [there] was looking." We all know how Mexico is known for its academics: much moreso those dumb-ass Middle Eastern, Indian and Asian countries.

Feral_and_Preposterous:Way to dismiss three old cultures with the comment that it "wouldn't be surprising if no one [there] was looking." We all know how Mexico is known for its academics: much moreso those dumb-ass Middle Eastern, Indian and Asian countries.

1) There wouldn't be much of anyone in the Sahara to be looking.

2) This is telescope observations, not naked eye. Scopes would have been rare in the areas referred to.

Arkanaut:I wonder if this guy's observations were detailed enough to allow us to track down where those objects went after 1883.

No. Even with modern scopes you would have little luck in finding them. Finding something in the sky you don't expect simply tells you there's something new out there. You need at least three observations in order to figure out where it's heading and the farther apart those three observations are the better your plot of where it's going. (On the other hand, they have to be close together so you can find it at all--in practice three gives you a rough trajectory and that allows you to find it later and get a better one. Note how every time a threatening object is found the odds get revised over time? That's because the initial three points aren't a very good plot, when it's found again we get a much better plot and the odds are recalculated.)

A parade of objects which stayed between the Earth and the Sun for more than a day? It doesn't seem likely that everything was positioned so none of them hit the Earth -- although several Tunguska-level events could have happened over the ocean without much notice.

WelldeadLink:A parade of objects which stayed between the Earth and the Sun for more than a day? It doesn't seem likely that everything was positioned so none of them hit the Earth -- although several Tunguska-level events could have happened over the ocean without much notice.

StopLurkListen:WelldeadLink: A parade of objects which stayed between the Earth and the Sun for more than a day? It doesn't seem likely that everything was positioned so none of them hit the Earth -- although several Tunguska-level events could have happened over the ocean without much notice.

Just a sample calculation for just one impact at the middle of the estimates, hitting an average ocean depth. We'd notice.

Not to mention that it took more than 24 hours for the fragments to pass by the sun. That implies that had the object been aimed at the Earth it would have taken 24+ hours for all the pieces to have struck us. No way they all would have fallen harmlessly into deep water. We humans would have been hammered back into the neolithic.

"Ask any ten scientists any question about the environment, politics, or society, and you'll get ten different answers. But there is one thing they all agree on. If it's in a hundred years, or a thousand Years, or a million years, eventually our sun will grow cold and die. When that happens, it won't just take us, it'll take Marylin monroe, Lao-Tse, Einstein, Morobuto, Buddy Holly, and Aristophenes. Then all of this, ALL of this, was for nothing - unless we go to the stars." Commander sinclair, Babylon 5.

End Phase of the Sun, a comet, asteroid, or numerous other possibilities...it matters not. On a long enough time line the survival chances of this planet drops to zero.

WelldeadLink:A parade of objects which stayed between the Earth and the Sun for more than a day? It doesn't seem likely that everything was positioned so none of them hit the Earth -- although several Tunguska-level events could have happened over the ocean without much notice.

Tunguska caused minor earthquakes that could be felt as far away as Europe and it lit up the night sky for days afterward, plus it dimmed the atmosphere slightly. If several of those had gone off at once, yeah, people would have noticed.

I was an intern at an observatory/planetarium when that happened. We spent the night in the observatory watching the impacts through the 16 inch diameter telescope. Well, the remnants of the impacts, they hit on the opposite side from Earth.

Way to dismiss three old cultures with the comment that it "wouldn't be surprising if no one [there] was looking." We all know how Mexico is known for its academics: much moreso those dumb-ass Middle Eastern, Indian and Asian countries.

How many astronomers might have been looking through fairly sophisticated telescopes in places on/near latitude 23.2928° N in 1883?